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The United States government recently informed several European countries of its decision to withdraw from joint cooperation agreements aimed at combating disinformation campaigns promoted by hostile governments such as Russia, China, and Iran.
The measure involves the cancellation of memorandums of understanding that were signed in 2023 under the administration of Joe Biden, with the aim of coordinating a common strategy to identify and expose information manipulation operations, reported the newspaper Financial Times.
The notification, sent last week by the State Department, marked the definitive closure of a chapter that had sought to protect Western democracies against one of the most effective tools of authoritarian regimes: informational warfare.
The dismantling of the GEC
The decision is part of a broader policy by President Donald Trump, who since his return to the White House has pushed for drastic cuts in agencies dedicated to protecting American democratic processes.
The Global Engagement Center (GEC), established in 2011 to counter terrorist propaganda and later focused on state disinformation, was closed in December 2024 after Republican lawmakers blocked the renewal of its mandate.
James Rubin, who led the GEC until the end of last year, described the decision to end international agreements as a “unilateral disarmament act” in the information war against Moscow and Beijing.
In his view, artificial intelligence will multiply the risks of manipulation in the coming years, making the U.S. withdrawal even more perilous.
From the administration, however, the narrative is the opposite. Darren Beattie, acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, celebrated the closure of the agency and the international agreements: “Far from eliminating an isolated plan, we are proud to have put an end to the entire GEC. Its censorship activities were incompatible with our stance in favor of freedom of expression and, moreover, ineffective.”
Rubin categorically denied that the office had engaged in censorship, defending its role as a key player in exposing foreign manipulation campaigns aimed at sowing chaos in democratic societies.
Marco Rubio closed the office against foreign disinformation
In April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announced the permanent closure of the Office of Manipulation and Interference of Foreign Information, the successor of the GEC.
The Cuban-American argued that the organization, with an annual budget of over 50 million dollars, had become a threat to freedom of expression and was focused on "silencing the very Americans it was supposed to serve."
The measure was framed within the cuts driven by the Trump administration and by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created and led by Elon Musk, which has promoted the closure of diplomatic programs and agencies such as USAID.
Former officials warned at the time that the closure left the United States without a specialized mechanism to counter foreign manipulation campaigns, at a moment of high global vulnerability.
Interference campaigns: A persistent threat
The conclusion of international agreements contrasts with the history of hostile operations that Washington has faced in the last decade.
The warnings began in December 2016, when Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for its cyberattacks and disinformation operations during the presidential elections. Trump, then president-elect, requested public evidence, fueling internal division.
In 2017, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller opened an investigation that led to charges against former advisors of the Trump campaign. In 2019, his report concluded that Moscow had conducted “systematic operations” to influence the elections, although it did not prove a criminal conspiracy with the Republican's circle.
In parallel, the then-senator Marco Rubio denounced the propaganda work of Telesur and Prensa Latina, which are aligned with the governments of Havana and Caracas, and the State Department warned about the combined influence of Russia, China, Cuba, and Iran on the continent.
During that same period, the Russian broadcaster RT attempted to expand in Latin America with a project in Cuba, reinforcing the Kremlin's narrative in the region. In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia not to interfere in the U.S. elections.
In 2020, the FBI director stated that Moscow was promoting campaigns against Biden. Washington also accused Cuba of using social media to spread propaganda, while Trump openly questioned the legitimacy of the electoral results, amplifying internal distrust.
This journey shows that foreign information manipulation has not been an isolated phenomenon, but rather a sustained strategy to undermine trust in institutions and weaken the leadership of the United States and its allies.
A decision consistent with Trump's narrative
The closure of the GEC and the abandonment of international agreements align with Trump's narrative, a president who has built his political career outside of verifiable facts. Since 2016, he has spread conspiracy theories, distorted data, and discredited the intelligence agencies that documented Russian interference.
At the Helsinki summit in 2018, he cast doubt, in front of Putin, on the conclusions of his own security services and lent credibility to the Kremlin's denial. More recently, he has justified certain arguments from Moscow for invading Ukraine, such as the alleged threat posed by NATO, statements that have been used by Russian propaganda to reinforce its war narrative.
With this background, the dismantling of the architecture against disinformation does not appear as an isolated movement, but rather as part of a pattern: relativizing the threat of foreign campaigns, minimizing documented evidence, and allowing leeway for the strategic adversaries of the West.
The cancellation of agreements with Europe and the closure of the specialized office leave Washington without a formal framework to address a challenge that has proven to be real and sustained.
Critics warn that, in a global scenario marked by information warfare, technological expansion, and artificial intelligence, the U.S. withdrawal could come at a high cost not only for its democracy but also for the stability of the entire Western bloc.
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